


Tempered creatures

by NonchalantDanger



Category: Yellowstone (TV 2018)
Genre: BAMF Beth, Bamf Rip, Character Study, F/M, Introspection, Language, Romance, Sexy Times, Spoilers for Season 2, and sex, description of violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:27:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24402823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NonchalantDanger/pseuds/NonchalantDanger
Summary: "Contrary to popular belief, it's unwise to temper creatures of flesh and bone like steel." -- Amrit BrarRip ain't ever been a soft man. Beth isn't a kind woman. Neither has the time to be anything else, but they make time for each other.
Relationships: Beth Dutton/Rip Wheeler
Comments: 11
Kudos: 105





	1. Beth

**Author's Note:**

> This show, people. Watch it, and be hooked real quick. 
> 
> Beth and Rip caught me in the fucking FEELS. 
> 
> There is language and sex in this. Don't like it, don't read. 
> 
> Cheers.

Dark hat and jacket, a sun-bronzed scowl, and the swagger of a man who knows he can take anyone in the room in a fight, maybe two or three at once, and walk out afterwards is the first impression most people make of Rip Wheeler, right hand and fixer for John Dutton of the Yellowstone. Like scared rabbits, they go still when Rip’s acre-long stare rolls over them from within the shadow of his hat. Everyone in the county knows him, and goes miles out of their way _not_ to fuck with him. 

Beth observes this every chance she gets, cause it reinforces the fact that she knows Rip better than anyone. Even her father. 

Strangers who have only heard the rumors think of him as a kind of cowboy boogeyman, the indomitable watchdog who will bite fucking heads off if you look or talk at John Dutton, his ranch, or his family in the wrong way. They’re not entirely mistaken, but Beth knows Rip leverages his reputation to shut that shit down just as often as his words or his fists. For all his lack of a shiny college degree and the layer of dirt on his clothes, he reads people almost as well as she does, and unlike her rarely indulges the urge to be cruel. 

Beth knows the difference between Rip angry and Rip out of control. She knows she pushes him towards the latter more than she means to, that his concern for her frays the tight hold he keeps on his ever-brimming emotions, sabotages his ability to use them effectively as a tool. Rip yelling at the wranglers for being stupid and killing and intimidating for her father is baseline behavior, but he’s not usually wild. His violence is effective because he knows how much force to use and when to use it. When he looses control, he’s as indiscriminate as a hurricane with the damage he does. For as terrifying as he is, Beth still believes he hasn’t been to the end of that rope since the day he killed his sonuvabitch father, but with the way things are escalating and how John Dutton treats him, he might get there. 

Rip trading blows with Kayce is different. The rigged fight — cause for all that Rip tries to deflect from the fact he let Kayce win, everyone, from her to the lowman of the bunkhouse knows Rip only hit the dirt because John Dutton asked — for foreman is unsurprisingly orchestrated by her father, and Beth’s glad she didn’t figure it out or hear about it until hours after the fact because if she’d been there, she’d have been picking bits of Kayce out of her teeth before he could touch Rip. Unlike her brothers and sometimes her daddy, she knows herself, has had a lot of time, drunk and not, to think about why she does things, so she knows that the verbal lacerations she gave Kayce on the porch of the foreman’s house later the same day had more to do with the gathered wetness in Rip’s thunderstorm blue eyes and the catch in his voice when he’d said ‘family’ than anything else. 

She overhears two of the wranglers talking about Walker’s death wish. She learns the man she pinned up against the barn and had her way with pushed Rip’s biggest, reddest of buttons, used _her_ against him just to piss him off, and then whined when Rip made every attempt to break him in half. She is shocked to see Walker still alive despite his idiocy, and very quickly feels like an idiot herself. 

She knows Rip loves her, and has done so for a long time. It's there in the lines of his face, the softening curve of his mouth, the ease of his constant readiness for violence. She knows he keeps it to himself, looks away from her when her father is near more for her sake than anyone else’s. She doesn’t know why he’s consistently so patient, but she treasures the sight of his soft smile lines and the brightening of his eyes when she apologizes for her abysmal choices. His grin as he rides away warms her more than the sun. 

She asks him not to say it on the roof, and he doesn’t, at least not aloud — the way his lips and tongue move against hers have repeated it like a prayer for years. She tries to wordlessly return it. She breathes him in because he’s better than nicotine any day, and the way he gently, thoroughly claims her mouth with his says he knows. 

She texts him for help when Beck’s bullyboys come into her office because she knows that Rip will put their heads on a platter. She’s… _out of it_ when he comes crashing in, but she’ll always remember the sound of a skull cracking against the floor and how quickly it was over. She’s composed by the time her father and the doctor arrive because of how tightly he holds her as she sobs, murmuring _it’s gonna be okay, baby_ and _I got you, sweetheart_ into her hair even as he’s bleeding from the bullet hole one of the dead motherfuckers on the floor put in his side. She wants to keep bashing those two bastards’ skulls in until they’re unrecognizable when she notices how unsteady Rip is when he moves to the office couch. 

She knows he’s in pain when the doctor patches him up because she never lets go of his hand; his grip tightens a couple times and it shifts the bones of her fingers. She can’t even really feel one side of her face, so the ache of his hand squeezing hers is grounding. She’s also never seen him need two guys to get him up and steady him as he walks. She can only imagine the adrenaline crash he’s going through, if it feels anything like hers. 

She keeps vigil during his drug and pain-induced sleep, and when he wakes they cradle each other for a little while. His brick shit house frame is damn comfortable — she regrets not having him in a bed before now, then banishes the thought as untimely — and the warmth that radiates off of him works like a heating pad on her bruised body. The slow rhythm of his breathing soothes her in and out of fitful naps. None of these are the reasons why her eyes sting with tears when he limps from the room. Her earlier comment about him being a dog uneasy in the house comes back to her, and she curses Kayce and her father and herself.

Beth knows Rip. But the way Rip’s eyes well with unshed tears when he stands in the front room of the house her father _finally_ decided to give him, the Rip who visibly stifles emotion that catches in his throat when the letter calls him son, _the son_ who's proven himself loyal time and time again is a Rip who's as rare as a blue moon. She holds him through it, and promises herself that along with the ranch, she’ll protect _Rip_.

When Tate is back, safe, and mostly whole — Beth knows trauma, so there’s gonna be something, but she hopes they catch it early — and she and Rip stand in the sunshine outside the main house and smile at each other, she feels some tension she’s been unconsciously carrying since she got to the ranch ease. He walks off to his new house, cowboy stride long and languid, and she stays behind to do damage control, but she doesn’t wait long to cross the threshold of his door. 

He still has his stitches in, and she’s still bruised almost everywhere, so she eases him down onto his back across his new king-sized mattress and rides him; slow, inescapable rolls of her hips that have him gasping and swearing with religious reverence, head falling back and his hands clutching white-knuckled in the sheets. It might be torture if it wasn’t so damn good. His eyes are the color of the sky after it rains, and he looks at her with a different kind of devotion than he does her father, and she wonders why it took her this long to see it. She can’t help herself; she leans down, one hand holding his jaw and the other twining in his sweat-curling hair and kisses him with all the pent-up love and affection she can imbue. He unravels, shaking through his orgasm beneath her, and it's one of the more rapturous experiences she’s had in her life. 

She doesn’t let him return the favor, soothes his momentary discontent with more kisses, and just lays down beside him and tucks herself against his body. She sleeps more deeply than she has in a long time. At least until Rip wakes her up before dawn with his broad, calloused hands wandering over her breasts and her hips in the ways she likes best, murmuring soft endearments into her skin. He holds her against his chest, wrapping her up until she feels safe, and gets her off with the exquisite finesse of his fingers against her clit. He does it once more in the shower they share on his knees, lips and tongue between her legs with the same gentle, ravishing skill. She's cursing eloquently as he takes his time, and his deep, satisfied chuckle adds another level of sensation to the burning lave of his tongue and she's helpless to it, to _him_ , when she comes. She eases him to his feet, and kisses him until the water goes cold.

She dresses eventually, but not until after she’s helped Rip re-tape his bandages. He sits still, and doesn’t grumble once. He’s indulging her, and she appreciates it. She kisses him, lingeringly, a bit of a promise. He smiles again, and it’s better than tequila and cigarettes combined the way his smiles soothe her. He makes them coffee from the store Lee had left over, and she's touched to learn he likes a bit of honey in his mug when he wants to savor it and the boys won't see.

She hesitates when she makes to leave, but he knows her just like she knows him; he steps over, boots thudding, and opens the door for her like a gentleman. His eyes are that depthless, thunderstorm blue again. 

“I’m never far, Beth.” He rumbles. It’s the same way he said _I love you_. 

She nods. She shrugs her daily armor back on. “Be seeing you, Rip.”

She steps off the porch ready to make war, cause Beth knows Rip, and she knows that he’ll move hell and earth. She can do the same. 


	2. Rip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rip looking at Beth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2! Woooooo. This fandom bug has bit me good. Rip was a bit more difficult to get into than Beth for me, but I started to swear more and it seemed to work. Idk. 
> 
> Whiskey Myers' "Stone" is the song that plays when Rip and Beth dance in the bar, and I love it.

Rip understands what he is to the Yellowstone. He knows his job is to be immovable and fucking unstoppable at the same time. He is the weight behind John Dutton’s threats, the man who can take the hits and keep taking them, who gets back up and makes enemies of the ranch regret their existence until they cease to be. John Dutton, for all his faults, has always made what he needs from Rip clear.

Beth Dutton is more complicated. Has been from since the day Rip met her, all of thirteen and already turning a sharp edge to the world. He’d felt like he’d been punched in the gut when she walked away, the tilt of her hips in that jean skirt blanking any complete thought he’d had. Her brusque curiosity had been a trait she’d kept to this day. 

That old son of a bitch wrangler had been right when he’d said Rip had fallen in love, not that he admitted it, even to himself, for years after the fact.

Beth leaves. Gets married. Gets divorced. Returns to the ranch as John Dutton’s juggernaut. Over the years, she’s made herself into a weapon with the sheath of a woman, voluptuous and deceptive. Rip keeps working the ranch, keeps doing what her father asks of him, and tries not to let the sight of her get under his skin. He fails. 

He’s genuinely looking for Mr. Dutton when she all but ambushes him. She wields her sexuality like a chainsaw, cutting men down at the knees. Even after years apart, he knows her body, and he can’t even lie to himself and say she’s not the best goddamn lay he’s ever had. He lets his guard down, asks her on a date because _he missed her_ and she reminds him, with no room to misunderstand, _that’s not who we are to each other_. Rip feels fucked in more ways than one when she stomps away. 

For all that she hates horses, Beth reminds Rip of a bronco sometimes. She’s fearless, smart as hell, but sometimes she lashes out at the few people who aren’t trying to hurt her. She’s doesn’t do scared, but not being afraid doesn’t mean she doesn’t flay herself alive with her guilt and anger; most people just can’t tell cause they’re caught in the inferno that is Beth Dutton and they’re rightfully worrying about their own wounds. Rip stopped worrying about his a long time ago, but sometimes she works his last nerve. Like when she takes a run at a pack of wild wolves. Fuck, he doesn’t think his heart has beat that fast in _years_.

He’s been cut by her wit and burned by her wrath enough times that it feels like a part of his soul is the same, taut scar tissue as the brand on his chest, only it’s in the shape of Beth Dutton’s love. He would bear it just as proudly as the Yellowstone hooked ‘Y’ if he didn’t think Beth would be the first person to scathe him for it.

He means it when he says she looks good in neon. She looks damn good all the time, and when she smiles at him and deflects his compliment he knows she knows that. They two-step together to the croon of Whiskey Myers, and when she puts her arms around his shoulders he doesn’t give a fuck about anything else. They could dance the night away — her flock of admirers scattered when he arrived, and all the rest know who she is and wisely don’t want to risk having their balls ripped off and added to her collection — but Beth’s had more than a few beers, a few shots on top of that, and he knows she’ll get bored and acerbic after a while. So he drives them back. She doesn’t turn around to wave as she struts into the house. 

Shit hits the fan with the tourists and the bear. Rip silently begs Mr. Dutton to let him toss the Sheriff over the cliff, but gets sent to escort the Fish and Wildlife officer instead. Nobody fuckin’ listens to him, even when he’s fuckin’ right, and it pisses him off until he wants to go to the bar in town and pick a fight just for the sake of working it out of his system. Instead, he goes the fuck to bed. 

The bullshit with Walker hurts more than it should. He’s not lying or deflecting when he tells her that he really doesn’t care who she fucks, because for her sex doesn’t really get under her skin. Besides, they’ve been more than fuck buddies since before she left, they’re just both too chickenshit to admit it. He’s concerned, so concerned for her and now John — who’s dying, and _fuck_ , Rip can barely hold onto his composure by the skin of his teeth at that revelation — he can barely keep his temper as he manages the day-to-day and the wranglers. Beth needs to be entirely focused on protecting the ranch, not dallying with some hippie convict who has no sense of duty or honor or fucking loyalty. Rip wants to kill Walker because he’s a whiny flake of a bastard, not because he touched Beth. 

He doesn’t think about her in John Dutton’s office when he’s asked to give up the foreman’s house for Kayce, the prodigal son — his chest feels he’s been pitched off a horse, half breathless, half crushed, but it’s John Dutton asking, so Rip is the one doing — but Rip is really fucking glad that Beth didn’t know until after the fistfight happened. He wouldn’t have been able to bring himself to let Kayce have the last punch if she’d been watching. He hears her walk up behind him on the lawn, but doesn’t expect her to join him. Instinctively, he shies away from the hand that turns his head to see where Kayce split open the skin of his cheekbone, but she’s strangely tender, smoothing down his beard before she pulls away. He can’t stand her sympathy, and sure as fuck doesn’t understand how she could think he’d leave. He’s beat half to hell, tired, and deep down a little heartbroken, so he walks away from her like she’s done so many times to him. She can’t let it go. She doesn’t understand what it’s like to be a smaller piece on the board. She doesn’t understand that his kind of loyalty is the kind like the mountain that looms over the ranch, constant and unmoving. She’s indignant on his behalf, but Rip doesn’t know how to tell her he doesn’t need it. He’s got other things to focus on; the oncoming war between the Duttons and the Becks is going to be bloody. He knows Beth can hold her own, and he doesn’t need to worry about her.

She apologizes for choosing Walker, and hurting him. He wants to kiss her, but he’s got work to do, and so does she, so he lets her know that they’re good and rides away. He manages to get the stupid, happy grin on his face under control by the time he catches up to the boys, but Lloyd winks at him knowingly. Rip scowls, and sends him on his way with an affectionate _fuck you_. 

When she calls him to the roof, her voice low and amused, he can feel that she’s in an odd mood. More thoughtful than she usually lets herself be. She — essentially — asks him out, but then they talk about all the shit they don’t talk about to anyone else. God, he loves her. He loves her enough not to say it like she asks. He’s content that he may never get to, because when the fuck would a woman like Beth Dutton need saving?

They kiss until the moon starts to fall out of the sky.

Then the most terrifying night of Rip’s life happens. 

_Help office_ is all he gets. He breaks city, county, and probably state speeding laws to get there, sees the blood, sees the dead assistant, and sees Beth on the table. He doesn’t see red — he learned to utilize his rage a long time ago — but he feels almost the same as when he woke up and saw his little brother’s corpse slumped against the kitchen cabinets. The two thugs die very quickly by necessity. He would have liked to take his time. He doesn’t feel that he’s been shot until his concern for Beth dampens the adrenaline. It’s a clean through-and-through, but the pain floors him, and as much as he’d prefer not to have to lean on Ryan and Jimmy to walk out, he knows he’d fall over if he tried, never mind the scowl John Dutton would turn on him, so he’ll take the lesser embarrassment. 

He wakes up to her brutalized face. He doesn’t know how long he’s been out. Holding her lets him fall back asleep, even though they’ve never shared a bed before. She’s allowing him to see her vulnerable. He understands it’s a rare privilege. 

He gets up and fights through the burning, pulsing ache in his side to dress not because he doesn’t want to stay. He can’t stay, so he can’t bear to waste any more time pretending he wouldn’t happily spend the rest of his life waking up next to Beth, being able to hold her, being the one who she'll shed her armor around. He tells Lloyd he’s not all right more for that reason than the pain that has him unsteady on his feet by the time he reaches the bunkhouse. 

John Dutton gives him a _house_. Calls him _son_. Beth is right there calling him _baby_ and wrapping her arms tight around his shoulders as he struggles to stifle the sobs catching in his throat. 

He doesn’t die drawing fire during Tate’s rescue mission. After a second outing, they find the kid. He knows the Beck’s are only the latest in a long line of enemies. There will be more. But Rip can appreciate the sunshine as it catches the blonde highlights of Beth’s hair and her dry humor. 

He doesn’t expect her to come find him after he’s moved his things into his new place. Definitely doesn’t expect her to ride him to heaven and back with a tenderness that takes him apart. She stays the night, so he thanks her by making her string his name amongst some choice profanity as he gets her off. He makes her coffee and they each sip it sitting across the counter from each other. He has the tantalizing thought that sometime soon, when they both aren’t covered in bruises, he’ll suggest his counter might be better venue for a good fuck than the dresser in her bedroom. 

But he opens the door for her instead. She goes, and he knows she’s going to protect the ranch. He knows he’ll be _her_ right hand the day John Dutton leaves this earth.

Later that day, when he’s focusing more on his horse beneath him and the cattle in front of him, Lloyd sidles his steed up close and mutters _you’ve been grinning like a loon off an’ on. Jimmy’s getting skittish_. Rip can’t help but laugh, and Lloyd, the perceptive bastard, realizes all at once. 


End file.
